Jean-Pierre slams reporting on Biden’s health: ‘Saw no such decline’
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote in her new book that she “saw no such decline” in former President Biden’s cognitive ability and health before he dropped out of the 2024 election.
“I was technically a part of the president’s inner circle and saw Biden every day and saw no such decline,” Jean-Pierre wrote in her book “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” which was obtained by the Daily Mail.
She explained she did not read “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson. The book focused on how those around Biden helped to hide signs of his cognitive decline during his presidency and as he ran for reelection.
“I never read Tapper’s book and don’t ever plan to because that does not track with what I saw in the White House,” Jean-Pierre wrote.
Jean-Pierre wrote in her book that reporters’ questions about Biden’s 2024 debate performance were unfair, asking why President Trump was not asked the same questions.
“During the campaign, Trump would froth at the mouth for hours on end, bringing up the fictitious movie villain Hannibal Lecter and at one appearance making obscene gestures with a microphone,” she wrote. “But no reporter asked to speak to his doctor.”
Jean-Pierre also wrote that Biden’s prostate cancer would not have impacted his run for reelection.
It “would not have been directly related to his alleged cognitive decline, nor would it have affected his ability to make competent decisions as a world leader,” Jean-Pierre added.
Along with his cognitive health, Tapper and Thompson’s books illustrated how Biden’s aides considered the possibility of putting him in a wheelchair if he were reelected.
During the campaign, his presidency and after leaving office, Biden has maintained that he was capable of continuing as commander in chief.
Biden finished a round of radiation therapy Monday to treat prostate cancer. The former president’s diagnosis in May was “characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.” Because it was considered “hormone-sensitive” by his doctors, he has also undergone hormone treatment, a spokesperson said earlier this month.
“Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places,” Biden wrote on the social platform X, thanking those who showed support following his diagnosis.